Sunday, 18 May 2014

Maybe the models were not so wrong after all? : First Australian climate refugees soon on their way to the US and Europe?

The budgetary facts are inescapably grim for researchers and scientists based in renewable energies and research. The funding for all government programs related to climate change is set to shrink at an alarming rate, going from $5.75 billion this year to a scant $500 million in the next four years. Additionally, the Emissions Reduction Fund which is meant to help lower greenhouse gas emissions in Australia is going to be reduced to only $1.14 billion. This was devastating news after Environment Minister Greg Hunt had gone on record promising to provide $2.55 billion to fund the program. Nevertheless, it is not only climate change programs that are feeling the pinch of the Abbott budget. The Commonwealth Science and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), Australia’s national science agency, will have $111 million worth of funding slashed over the next four years, which will affect an uncertain number of programs and a loss of tenth of the CSIRO workforce.The outlook is bleak from the standpoint of scientists and researchers in Australia, many of whom will probably leave the country in order to find work elsewhere. Europe and the US, watch out, the first Australian climate refugees are coming! Maybe the alarmists' predictions about huge climate change migration were not so wrong, after all!

Most of the jobless Aussie surplus scientists will probably end up in the US, where the Obama administration no doubt will receive them with open arms ...